To Love A High Lord
by Odeveca
Summary: Vignettes of females that fell or were mated with the High Lords of Prythian. Done for the sheer joy of the series. I own nothing, but the joy of sharing some of these short pieces of fluff. Hope you enjoy!
1. Spring

**Spring.**

I met my mate in the beginnings of our youth.

In the place where the pine needles were ever-growing, and the sun was hot on our backs.

As a group of seven Fae females spread out in the field plucked strawberries from the earth.

My feet sunk into the moist grass below, not yet leached of its moist from the sun, and then shaded my eyes from the silver flecks of the Great Emerald Lake. We were far enough from the Manor and its grounds to enjoy the flower and birdsong nature surrounding us, and more so what little pleasant thoughts one could have away from where duty was concerned.

"Leesa." My sister pulls on my braid, pointing to my feet, "you stepped on one again."

I grin impishly at her disgusted face, "Oh no."

I did step on a strawberry in one of my happy daydreams, perhaps that is why the earth is so moist, and that is the only unpleasant thought I have of it. The earth, the dirt, worms, grass, and animals were all a soothing balm to me, my sister seemed to only see the sweat and back-break behind it all, too used to our years in plush and grace back home, but the ever-spring filled my hungry senses. I thirsted for more of it.

"You shouldn't ruin your dress so Leesa."

"Nothing brings me more joy," I answer, as I reach down to inspect the gushing damage to my otherwise green hued feet, "I think I made it obvious, I don't remember a time where I was happier than here."

"Compose yourself Leesa," is her reply when I am otherwise busy.

 _"Why?"_

I feel the shadow more than see it, and it envelops, shades the space around me.

The intruder eclipses the sun and drives my sister and our Fae female companions in an uproar so unlike to the calm morning I had expected to have.

Tamina, a female of the Spring Court is the first to speak. "High Lord. Welcome."

My sister repeats in just enough reverence. "My Lord." That steals away my peace, as I straighten my back at the mention of intruders, especially a noble one at that.

He responds in kind, "Ladies."

The golden fair shadow has the voice like warm honey dripping on sweet bread, it ripples through me, molten light made new in my bones, and I stop the shiver from continuing to place that it should not, refusing to stare at the shape of his lips, "please continue," he commands, his eyes subtly hinting the strawberry baskets in our arms.

"Of course, High Lord. These are for the ceremony later, our Vallahan guests wanted to join us with the picking," Tamina remarks as if I have not been dallying the day away daydreaming rather than picking.

"They are free to that and more," is his clipped response.

I feel at loss for words to add my own words, flicking the smashed strawberry from my hands before he sees it. Perhaps it's because his presence is so different from the bright white light and dense black forest of my homeland. He is so unlike the quick-talking and rather precocious Vallahan men back home, dressed to work, work the plentiful fields, rather than philander another noble's time with gossip and business.

He has not come alone.

"Your females are so productive Tagnar. I was surprised Maris and Leesa came in the first place," Vanir is with him, dressed to impress in flamboyant deep maroon and bright white, and his eyes are hungry for my sister. Just as they had for so many annoyingly long years. "Why is it that so _many fine females_ enjoy Tagnar's Court and not our company? Do we bore you ladies?"

I puff out my chest to meet the gaze of a Fae male that I have not the pleasure of meeting his gaze, and then glare right back at Vanir, "we aren't here to entertain you Vanir. Begone, and bother someone else."

"No one was speaking to you Leesa," he says in that dastardly irritable tone I have gotten over decades ago when I was put a child. His fancy for my sister meant little regarding being pleasant to me, and that only made it easier to prove him the worst choice for her.

"That doesn't mean I am going to let your boss us around. I am not going to let you ruin our morning Vanir," because that is certainly his intention when he came in search, panting after us as soon as we were out of sight.

"He certainly will not." Says the voice like honey, and I dare another look at the mysterious High Lord, and this time find him waiting.

I give myself the chance to really appraise him, to note the spell weaved in his emerald green eyes, and the tense jaw that seems to only grow when our eyes meet.

It is sinful the way he looks to us females, mighty in his title he may be, but annoyingly calm in his attitude, and yet deliciously shirtless to the point where my cheeks blush… _he so tan!_ My brain screams. He must be from the lands that I have come to love, and with so much sinew and golden muscle I am sure that he has worked the land with his own mighty hands. He did not look like a High Lord, not a farmer, he held himself as if he was a… conqueror, a conqueror of the land, and I…

"Come," is his command to me. The green in his eyes grew fierce. "Come with me Lady Leesa."

 _He couldn't mean? That I follow him, that I be commanded as if I was some lowborn female?_

A nudge from my older sister is all the incentive I need to remember myself.

"No."


	2. Summer

**Summer.**

 _"I love you Amanzi, kiss me, kiss me."_ Cresseida is pushing the play dolls together, female and male, her dark hands are gorgeous against the pale replications of some other Courts' High Fae.

She lifts the female one, _"we mustn't Nostrus. We are supposed to wait for marriage."_

 _"I cannot wait, I must have you"-_

"Okay that is enough," I tell her, pushing the dolls back down to the crisp cool tile floor of the Palace library, ending her little inappropriate play before it got too far, "and whom taught you to play like that?"

A toddling Tarquin giggles into his small hands, done with coloring a rather old tome, and looking from his older sister and back to my upset face. I had almost forgot I was watching him too as he waddles back into my lap.

"No one." Cresseida bits her lip.

"No one?" I knew better.

It was not always a good thing that Nostros' quarters were so close to his little cousins one. It was necessary to tuck them in, perhaps to play father and mother to children that had parents stolen from them before they could properly know them.

 _They can't hear us._ Nostros would whisper in my ear, tugging off the sash around my waist

 _Yes, they can._ I had shoved him off me on more than one occasion.

I had told him time and time again to speak more softly, to not reach out when they were looking, or dare the consequences of our time together come to public's light. They were children for Cauldron's sake. They did not know how to lie. Or the importance of it yet. "You better not be lying to me Princess Cresseida."

"I am not," she reached again for the toy dolls, "I will behave, I promise, I will," was all the incentive I needed to relinquish her amorous toys. Both Tarquin and Cresseida had stolen my heart ages ago, and yet I knew that this conversation was not one I should let pass by.

"Wait." I held the toys bac before she could take them, "pay attention Cresseida, because I can only say this once," little Prince Tarquin came close too, really paying attention now, both of their gorgeous aquamarine eyes wide and wondrous to my worried ones, "the things you hear between me and the High Lord cannot be repeated in front of others. This has to be our secret, alright? The things that go on in this family, stay in the family."

Tarquin nods like a good little Fae boy, and yet his sister thinks otherwise.

"Nostrus told us to not keep secrets from him," Cresseida puts it smartly, "we don't keep secrets in this family."

"Your right." I give her that, "but this is Nostrus' secret too. We have to keep it, to keep him safe, to keep all of you safe," my hand falters before going to my belly, and revealing even more.

Before I can tell her more, the door to the High Lord's library opens, the humid heat and swaying palm trees that litter the white sand beaches are revealed as Prince Varian spots us.

His hand is tight around the doorknob. "Amanzi," I don't like the way his eyes fall, "our High Lord needs you."

"Of course," I rise, "watch our little ones." Varian, the Captain of the Guard, and so close to both Nostrus and I's heart bows his head in some form of respect.

"I will watch them."

"Thank you Varian," I touch his shoulder before leaving.

My sandaled feet slap against the cool shadowed tile floor leads to the open structures of the palace of paradise and tropical birds of fantastical colors disperse as I enter the royal pavilion. I slow to a trot against the hot part of the tiled grounds, the sweat perfectly unbearable as I get back into the shade of Nostros' inner sanctum, and the guards do not blink twice when I enter his study.

"Nostrus." His back is to me, bracing the study's table, "what is the matter?"

He doesn't wait another second, his hands are in my white hair, his lips on my dark cheek, and a shiver on voice so unlike the way I had left him this morning, "what took you so long?"

My answer is a kiss, a long amorous one, nibbling on his lip the way I know he likes it, and he in turn kisses the side of my neck, but I know something is wrong, and I cannot let him distract me from it, even if these distractions are one of the main reasons I put up with the trouble of not only watching our little ones, but when his High Lord responsibilities become too stressful for even the both of us.

I pull back taking his face into my hands, "what is the matter my love?"

Tarquin has his eyes, and someday I know the little boy will resemble the handsome man before me now. Their motherless and fatherless lives were my burden to bear and I be damned if I was not here for him in any and every way I could be.

"I received a letter from Lord Driftmark?"

My nose wrinkled, "is he bothered you again?"

"You could say that," he melted into my touch, "this time he asked for too much, and I might have overstepped my respects with him."

"What did you say Nostros?" She didn't feel like playing the mother, but these months that is exactly what she was, perhaps it was the hormones, perhaps it was because of attending her High Lord she was attending his baby cousins, watching, playing, and falling in love with them just as their older cousins Nostros and Varian had. "Will we have to send any blood diamonds?" She teased him.

He paled, "no." There was no humor in his voice, none of the Nostros she had once known.

"Your scaring me." That was the truth. "What is wrong?"

"I have to marry," he gritted, turning from her, ashamed, "I have to marry Lord Driftmark's daughter. All of the Lords under my rule came and testified that if I did not have a male heir from his daughter by the end five year hence they would revoke my right to rule over the Summer Court. They say it is high time I settled on a bride suitable to my station."

"Marry?" I hated how little my voice sounded. "You must marry."

I had prepared myself to one day have to let Nostros go, but after this season of love had come to pass, I felt completely different. A selfish part of me did not want to let go of mornings filled with his kisses, and late night conversations about the future. Not after our miracle had yet to flourish inside of me, and the promises we had made in the preparation for such a blessing to come into our lives. A heavy feeling came over me, as if I was swept under the deep of the sea, and I had not the gills nor the motivation to rise to the surface.

"Amanzi I will not do it." He put his sea-weathered hands around the small bump on my midsection. "You know I would never let you go."

Kissing my forehead as if I was the most precious thing to him. "I love you and only you." Was his most solemn vow. "I refused the first moment I heard it, called him an urchin of the worst kind. How dare he request this of me? I have devoted my life to my people, to make their lives comfortable, if my father was here, or my Uncles?" His grown tickled my hairline, and I felt ill at the mention of his dead relatives, some part that would always be lost to him, "my father would have killed him for less, for demanding such a thing of a High Lord. I should kill him, send a message to all those that dare to in the future."

"That isn't you." I knew.

He didn't say anything.

So, I had to. "His request is sound Nostros." Even I knew that. "It has merit, you could enrich the lives of your family and the Court by marrying into a wealthy family like theirs."

"I could fall into the sea and stop breathing too, bet he would like that," was Nostros dark reply. It filled me with worry.

Had he been this way with the Lord, spoke with such hatred of the thought? Did he think that this would not reflect badly on the rumors that had already wormed its way into the Court, and even our precious Cressida's mind?

 _That I was his whore._

I am his mistress.

That I am the anchor tied around his neck, keeping him from setting sail into those shores beyond, to the shore his humbly noble bloodline had procured after years of leading and sacrifice. I was not meant for the greatness that would be his legacy. When I had met Nostros, I thought, finally a High Lord worthy of leading the Summer Court into an era I could not even imagine.

Marriage meant little in the greater scheme of things. That is what I told myself.

"You will not deny him," I heard myself say, surprised with the determination behind it. "There is no too steep a price for a High Lord, and I will not let you lose yourself because of my station Nostros. I forbid you from giving up on this chance."

"You…" that flipped the tables. "You are saying I should do this?"

I met his alarmed eyes, knowing there was no way I would let him do this to his people, to the glory of his family, and more importantly to himself, "you will marry Lord Driftmark's daughter, and put these rumors to rest. You are High Lord." I lifted my chin at him, "so act like it."


End file.
